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Vice President Mike Pence waves to the crowd as he stands with Republican Congressional Candidate John Chrin during a campaign stop at the Wilkes Barre Wyoming Valley Airport, Wednesday October 24, 2018 in Forty Fort, Pa., Republican congressional candidate John Chrin is running against Democratic US Representative Matt Cartwright, PA, 8th District.Mark Morancv25pencep4PAWIC101

CHRISTOPHER DOLAN / THE CITIZENS’ VOICE U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, left, stands with Vice President Joe Biden during the start of the 110th annual dinner of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Lackawanna County on Tuesday at Genetti Manor in Dickson City.

Presidents and presidential candidates visit Northeast Pennsylvania all the time, but we haven’t seen this kind of attention from big-name people during a mid-term since 2010.

As that election approached, Republicans sat poised to take over the U.S. House.

They did, and their 63-seat gain included two local congressional seats that Democrats had occupied.

This Tuesday, Democrats seem poised to gain control of the House, and the way a local House seat goes will help determine if they do.

In 2010, Republican former U.S. Attorney Tom Marino defeated incumbent Democratic Rep. Chris Carney, who won the seat from Republican Rep. Don Sherwood only four years earlier. On his third try — he lost in 2002 and 2008 — Republican former Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta finally beat 13-term incumbent Democratic Rep. Paul Kanjorski.

Neither election was close.

That marked the first federal election after the tea party’s rise and a Democratic Congress and president passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, which only fueled the tea party rage. Republicans have spent the last eight years trying to repeal Obamacare without ever putting a replacement on the Oval Office desk for the president’s signature.

Guys like Marino and Barletta, who wants Sen. Bob Casey’s seat, voted more than 50 times to repeal Obamacare, including when they voted to pass the American Health Care Act in May 2017. The House narrowly passed that bill mostly along party lines, but it still isn’t the law because the Senate hasn’t passed it.

This time, Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare have charged up Democrats, who, for the first time, are running openly on preserving Obamacare, though mostly without actually calling it Obamacare. They talk a lot about saving coverage of pre-existing conditions. (Unlike Obamacare, the American Health Care Act allows insurance companies to charge consumers more in premiums to cover pre-existing conditions.)

Count Rep. Matt Cartwright as one of the guys talking about preserving coverage of pre-existing conditions. His opponent for the 8th Congressional District seat, Republican John Chrin, also wants to preserve pre-existing condition coverage.

Democrats need Cartwright to win to keep their hopes of regaining the House on track and it’s the one race here that got a lot of outside attention.

In 2010, Carney, Kanjorski, Marino and Barletta got major help.

Vice President Joseph Biden stumped in Scranton for Carney. President Bill Clinton campaigned for Kanjorski in Nanticoke. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose wife at the time was from Hazleton, swung through Wilkes-Barre for Barletta.

Marino got help only from former Clinton political guru Dick Morris, who visited Lewisburg to raise money for the future congressman.

Since then, nothing except normal presidential and presidential campaign visits, mainly because we haven’t had a really competitive general election for Congress.

Cartwright had a contested primary election against incumbent Democratic Rep. Tim Holden in 2012, but none of the local congressional seats has wound up competitive in the general election since 2010.

The stars come out only when there’s a race.

We have one in the Chrin-Cartwright 8th Congressional District contest, which has attracted serious star power. Eric Trump and Vice President Mike Pence stumped last week mainly for Chrin. Sunday night, Biden comes back to stump for Cartwright and Casey. Oh, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, which helps Republican House candidates, spent big on the race in September.

Two independent polls have Cartwright way up and every poll has Casey far ahead, but Biden’s visit makes us wonder at least about where Cartwright stands.

If Cartwright’s so far ahead, why does he need Biden here?

It’s billed as a get-out-the-vote rally. That the former vice president will campaign in Luzerne County could signal Cartwright fears what Democrats might do there. Remember, President Trump won the county by almost 20 percentage points two years ago despite Democrats far outnumbering Republicans. Trump also won the 8th by 10 points.

We rely on polling as much as ever, but polls are shakier than ever because fewer people respond and pollsters have to do more mathematical weighting. For example, the Franklin & Marshall College poll now routinely has margins of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points when it used to have margins of error of plus or minus 3 or 4 points.

Given that, even if polls say you’re up, if you think you need Biden and you can get him, then bring him on.

We’ve heard some Democratic Trump voters say that if Biden were on the ballot instead of Hillary Clinton, they would have voted for Biden instead of Trump.

Biden campaigned for Clinton on the Sunday morning before the 2016 election at Johnson College, but it didn’t help. That rally, which didn’t draw well, looked like too little too late. Sunday morning is no time to woo voters, especially in a religious area like this one. (Maybe that’s why Biden is coming Sunday night.)

The next day, Trump stopped at Lackawanna College and drew a far larger and more enthusiastic crowd that signaled what was coming.

Trump won Pennsylvania. His strong performance in Luzerne County and Lackawanna County — he lost here by only 3.5 points in a county 2 to 1 Democratic — signals something else.

If you think we’re getting a lot of attention now and think we used to get a lot of attention from presidential candidates, wait until 2020.

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